Worst Person in the World is Uneven

 

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (2021)

Directed by Joachim Trier 

Oslo pictures/Snow Globe/Criterion, 127 minutes, R (nudity, sex )

In Norwegian with English subtitles 

* * *  

 

The Worst person in the World is far from being the worst movie in the world, but it's not as good as it should be unless your tolerance for about-to-be 30-year-olds struggling to grow up is higher than mine. 

 

Julie—an alluring Renate Reinsve–lives with Eksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), an underground comics artist. Although the story takes place in Oslo, Julie is flaky in ways analogous to Woody Allen's titular character in Annie Hall. She is impulsive and maddening, the sort of modern woman who is strong enough to express what she doesn't want, yet is clueless about what she does desire. Eksel is older than she and certainly more mature, his unconventional job notwithstanding. Among other things, he would like to have children; she doesn't. 

 

At this point I should mention that because all the men in this film are Norwegian, they are they are calm and behave well–no violence, screaming, or tantrums– even when they are being dumped. This will happen to Eksel when, Julie on a whim, crashes a party and finds herself attracted to a man her own age, Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). They flirt and began to see each other, not to “cheat” they assure each other, but to be intimate in other ways –like swallowing smoke and smelling each other's armpits! As you can surmise in an Oslo minute, this will spiral out of control and Julie will dump Eksel and take up with Eivind. Theirs is a more tempestuous relationship, but is this what Julie actually desires? 

 

Director Joachim Trier tells this tale in a prologue, 12 chapter whose titles often set up what is about to happen, such as: “Bad Timing,” “Oral Sex in the Age of MeToo,”, “A New Chapter,” and “First Person Singular.” There is also an epilogue of which I will comment in a moment.  Trier’s direction and the cinematography of Kaspar Tuxen are the best things about the film. There is a superb sequence that occurs when Julie finally decides it's Eivind that she wants. She sprints across Oslo to be with him as all of the city freezes in place with only the two of them animated. 

 

Tuxen's camera work is stunning. He makes Oslo into a character and captures moods via blurring versus sharp focus and through visual contrasts: a sterile hospital versus crisp parks, moody walks juxtaposed against the energy of the city, and gray days jousting with vibrant sunsets. I'd have to go back to him again–yes Woody Allen–and his film Manhattan to find someone who connected the urban landscape to character moods as well as Trier in The Worst Person in the World. 

 

If only the script—cowritten by Trier and Esks Vogt–was as sharp. Reinsve won a lot of best actress hardware and is quite competent and fetching. Alas, her character is that of a Millennial in both the hopeful and annoying ways in which those born near the end of the 20th century can be.  Danielson Lie is also strong, especially when he goes into wounded hangdog mode. Maybe he’s a thing in Norway, but I found Nordrum less compelling. He comes off as a guy with a hunky body and a small brain. 

 

Shortly after we get a goofy portrait of Eivind’s ex-, Sunniva, who decides to go full Sami yoga queen though it's just 3.4% of her heritage, the movie shifts in tone and mood. Oddly, it moves from quirky to sentimental, tragic, and conservative. Why beat up on family values for part of the movie and then valorize them? Why, indeed, shift from offbeat to serious at all? 

 

The namesake worst person in the world is, of course, Julie. The title is a deliberate and ironic misnomer. She's a mess in many respects but, as psychological portraits go, she's not even a serious contender for the planet's most awful human being. We are not meant to take this literally; It is Julie's self-perception– until it isn't! This film gets labeled as a rom-com, but that’s off base unless you think introducing the Big C (cancer) is a bucket of laughs.  Plus, rom-coms are generally broader and they seldom stray upon tragic themes without a concomitant miraculous escape. The Worst Person in the World isn't a bad film, just a flawed and extremely uneven one. 

 

Rob Weir